It originated with a conservative blogger, who twisted an accurate news story into a falsehood. Then it picked up steam when the Drudge Report ran with it. Even though Jeep's parent company gave a quick and clear denial, Mitt Romney repeated it and his campaign turned it into a TV ad.

what perhaps set this occasion apart, PolitiFact says, is the fact that the Romney campaign stood by the ad "even after the media and the public expressed collective outrage against something so obviously false."